New Necklace by KraftyKash!

You guys know I’ve got a thing for words, right? Well, I’ve got a friend who also has a thing for words, but she takes that love a step in the crafty direction, and handcrafts these words into awesome jewelry that is destined to hold special meaning for each wearer.

Meet Kashoan. She’s the super-creative lady behind KraftyKash, an Etsy shop (and blog) with some antique, wordy fare. Kashoan makes jewelry out of vintage dictionaries, atlases, sheet music, and Bibles. When I asked her what she loves most about her business, she replied,

“The stories and kind words from my customers, are my favorite thing about this business. I love being a part of helping create memories through my jewelry. I am a lucky girl.”

I love hearing stuff like that. More people should feel that way about what they do for a living.
Now, come on guys. Vintage dictionaries. I’ll bet if you open up one of those pendants you can smell the old pages. (In case you didn’t know, old pages are one of my favorite things to sniff.)

So, anyway, I’ve been quietly eyeing these pendants for a long time, but I’ve been stressing out about which word to choose. I mean, seriously? How do I even do that!? Do you know how many words there are out there? Eventually, though, I realized which word was the one, and I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it immediately.

You see, I’m not really a tattoo kind of lady. It’s not that I hate tattoos or anything . . . I just don’t like pain. I’m also terribly indecisive, and could see myself looking at my hypothetical tattoo in the future and banging my head against a wall because of it. HOWEVER, I’ve always had an “if I ever got a tattoo I’d get . . .” option in my head.

So, if I ever got a tattoo, I’d get one of the word “aesthetic.”

But that’s just not going to happen. I don’t really want a tattoo. I do, however, love that word. “Aesthetic” is defined as “having a sense of the beautiful; characterized by a love of beauty,” or “pertaining to, involving, or concerned with pure emotion and sensation as opposed to pure intellectuality.”

Now, at the risk of sounding like an idiot-bimbo-girl, I’m going to admit that I’m notorious for favoring the pretty over the functional. Not really in a “stab-someone’s-eyeball stilettos vs. practical flats” kind of way, but in a personal happiness kind of way. Something that makes me happy is generally going to be something beautiful and emotional, rather than well-thought-out and logical.

This is the pendant Kashoan sent me. It’s perfect. I love that towards the end of the definition, it’s got all the right words. I also like the little pearl embellishment . . . it gives it a nice feeling of completeness.

Mostly, though, I love knowing that an old, forgotten book got opened up and reincarnated into something that can go wherever the owner goes. It’s like the dictionary’s been saving up all its life and is now finally able to travel the world.

So, here’s the awesome part. Kashoan is offering a discount to you guys, my very special readers! All you have to do is visit her Etsy page, make your selections, and use the coupon code FAMILY for 20% off! How rockin’ is that? And make sure you like her onFacebook and follow her on Twitter . . . you never know when she’ll be having a “fill in the blank” contest with a discount as the prize!
Don’t forget, Kashoan makes custom pendants . . . so which word would you choose? Why? I’d love to know!!!